Guidance and HE: Contexts and issues

Guidance and HE:Contexts and issues Stephen McNair Director, CROW HECSU June 2007

Some aspects of change • Continuing economic growth • Demography • Globalisation • Declining social mobility • Labour market polarisation • Rising service sector HECSU June 2007

Projected change in age groups 2004-2020 Government Actuary’s Department HECSU June 2007

Research: things we know about HE • It pays – income and life benefits – for most (beware of averages!!) • It does best for traditional groups – white, male, graduate parents, high status institutions • Student demand continues to rise • Labour market demand continues to rise HECSU June 2007

Government policy • Personalisation • Choice • Aspirations • 50% HE participation before 30, • 45% of 19-65 population graduates by 2020 • Increased “employer” involvement • The skills agenda HECSU June 2007

Skills and work • Lifelong perspectives – late starts, deferred exit • International/national/local labour markets • Large/small firms • Sector difference – the role of SSCs? • Underemployment/overqualification • Task discretion matters a lot • People like work but want flexibility and work life balance HECSU June 2007

The policy response : Leitchthe core argument • Skills gaps are serious and growing • Processes for responding to changing skills needs are too slow • Planning, quotas and targets for skills don’t work – too slow, too remote, diverted by other concerns • Give power to customers to buy and make the market work HECSU June 2007

Leitch’s assessment: the risk of failing to act • Slipping further down the international economic league tables • Competitiveness and profitability reducing • Unemployment rising, jobs lost to other countries • Migration and social tensions increasing • Tax yields falling and public services cut back • Spiralling decline HECSU June 2007

Leitch’s assessment: the prize for prompt action • Improved economic performance: £80bn growth in GDP • UK attracting higher inward investment and additional jobs • Functional illiteracy and innumeracy largely overcome, with corresponding improvements in health and crime figures • Higher skills contributing to a higher standard of living for all HECSU June 2007

The Leitch vision? • Leitch’s proposal: a “demand led system”, which implies: • Consumers: • empower individuals (Learning Accounts and good career advice) • empower employers (Sector Skills Councils, Learning brokers, Train to Gain) • Make suppliers respond: channel funding through individuals and employers, not education providers • Provide good information and brokerage – a national adult careers service HECSU June 2007

“Engaging employers” • Reification of the concept • HR and strategic managers • Knowledge of specific requirements • Some kinds of “employer”: • Filling specific vacancies • Career building • Talent spotting – students, staff • “Corporate social responsibility” • Phasing out/off the premises • Market intelligence HECSU June 2007

Leitch: a vision outside time? • Over dependence on qualifications – to diagnose problem and to propose remedies • Government agendas are not joined up (and will not be) • Work and the lifecourse • Misunderstanding of human capital • Created by learning (not just courses) • Maintained by use and encouragement • Decays by neglect and obsolescence • Destroyed by bad management HECSU June 2007

The new Skills Agenda: opportunities for HE and Careers Services • Leitch will happen • It will be interpreted more narrowly than he intended • Implementation will generate perverse incentives • HE at its best knows a lot about skills, trends, scenarios, and can help as a partner, not a slave • HE should justify its independence by responding intelligently to the ultimate customers, not (necessarily) the intermediaries HECSU June 2007

Guidance and HE: Contexts and issues